I was a huge fan of another Madness game, Motocross Madness and when I saw a magazine, I think it was PC Gamer, with the demo for Midtown Madness on the disc, I had to splurge and buy the mag (it was $8.50 back then (about $16 today). It was not cheap but it was fun. Plus it would let me get an idea how it would run on my old Gateway computer (not very well so I put this on my back burner for a future purchase).
It was fun but yeah, even back then, the graphics were dated quite a bit. It was just accepted though when dealing with an open world style game like this. If you wanted superior graphics you were limited to something track based like Need for Speed. The freedom of figuring out the best way around the map was part of the fun with these open world racing games. It just took A LOT from what they could do graphically at the time.
In what year did you buy that magazine? I wonder how it felt to buy items in those years and the PC with the Midtown Madness logo made me very curious.
If the 🚜Midtown Madness looks like a NIntendo 64 game because of the graphics, but on that console at least it was acceptable on PC it lacked details haha, it could also be because of the gameplay, but if one of the things that stands out the most is the ability to go all over the city in free mode, a blast.
It had to be late 1998 or early 1999 when I bought it. One of the few magazines with a demo disc that I splurged on (I missed out on the exclusive for Half-Life demo back in the day in a different issue).
Back then, racing games were never really super detailed in general. Sure, Need for Speed pushed graphics but fans complained back then similarly to N64 fans - "why are we passing the same barn 15 times in a lap, it looks great but it is the same."
This was the end of the big box era as it was coming to an end. Huge text book sized boxes for a jewel case and sometimes a printed gaming manual inside (another item that was on its way out). Not all releases were in big box but those that were stood out though the writing was on the walls that publishers were trying to save money. Most of the big boxes of this era really only had the jewel case inside.
I remember buying big box games on PC like SiN or Baldur's Gate in a huge box along with R4 Ridge Racer 4 on PlayStation in this little jewel case and joking with the cashiers at EB about how awesome the box art on the PC games was. How we saw so much more on the back, you could actually see the thumbnails of in game action and got a lot more text on the PC games.
We knew, deep down, those days were coming to an end though. We enjoyed it while we could.